Z 1843.000
METCALFE (FREDERICK AUGUSTUS) PAPERS
1849; 1855 - 1862; 1869 - 1870; 1873 - 1883; 1885; n.d.
Microfilm copy must be used.
Biography
Frederick Augustus Metcalfe was born at Cold Springs Plantation, Claiborne
County, Mississippi, on July 5, 1830. He was the only child of Albert Gallatin
Metcalfe, formerly of Kentucky, and Evelina Matilda McCaleb, formerly of
South Carolina. Albert Gallatin Metcalfe died on January 28, 1833, and
his widow later married William H. Hammett who served as a member of Congress
from Mississippi from 1843 to 1845. Frederick Augustus Metcalfe was a graduate
of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and he also received
a law degree from Tulane University. He married Martha Priscilla Miller
of Jefferson County, Mississippi, on June 6, 1854, at Berkley Plantation
on Lake Washington. The couple lived at Lammermoor Plantation on Lake Washington
until they acquired Newstead, a 1,460-acre plantation in Washington County,
in 1855. The Metcalfes had eight children: Albert, Priscilla, Sally, Frederick,
John, Clive, Harley, and George Metcalfe.
Metcalfe did not serve as a field officer in the Confederate Army, but
he did serve as a captain in the Washington County home guard. After the
Civil War the first regular term of the probate court of Washington County
was held at Metcalfe's plantation. Metcalfe was appointed a grand juror
of the circuit court of Washington County in November 1865. He also served
as chaplain of the Mississippi legislature for one term. Metcalfe died
at Newstead Plantation on January 15, 1883.
Scope and Content Note
Included in this collection are five diaries kept by Frederick Augustus
Metcalfe from 1873 to 1883. The diaries document plantation management,
family matters, and local weather data. They also document the utilization
of an integrated labor force composed of negro and Chinese laborers in
the Mississippi Delta during the post-Reconstruction period. In his diaries
Metcalfe recorded the frequent flooding of nearby plantation lands. He
also recorded the activities of several important men including Kentucky
abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay; black Republican legislator John R.
Lynch; and former Mississippi Governor Charles Clark. The diaries further
document such local social activities as baseball games, circuses, concerts,
and dances.
The collection also contains four plantation journals, one of which
is in fragmentary form. The journals enabled Metcalfe and his overseer
to manage various plantation operations from 1857 to 1862. The journals
contain planting, harvesting, and marketing data. They also contain extensive
information regarding slave management.
A limited amount of correspondence is present in the collection, and
it relates to Metcalfe's plantation operations from 1860 to 1862 and during
1870.
Included are three lecture notebooks. Two of the notebooks were kept
while Metcalfe was a student in New York City and afterward at the College
of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and they contain notes on human
anatomy and the belles-lettres. The third notebook contains Harley
Metcalfe's lecture notes on political science, history, law, and rhetoric.
There is also an account book which records the cotton crops produced by
various Washington County planters from 1880 to 1883.
Series Identification and Description
Roll 1 (MF Roll # 36369):
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Correspondence. 1860–1862; 1870. 1 folder. This series contains the correspondence
of Frederick Augustus Metcalfe, and it primarily concerns the management
of Newstead Plantation. There is also a letter addressed to Metcalfe regarding
a land survey dated 1861. Arranged chronologically.
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Diaries. 1873–1883. 5 volumes. This series contains five diaries kept by
Frederick Augustus Metcalfe from 1873 to 1883. The diaries provide detailed
notes on plantation management, and they are an excellent source of information
on nineteenth-century methods of cotton and corn planting and harvesting.
The diaries further document the utilization of negro and Chinese laborers
in the post-Reconstruction Mississippi Delta. Metcalfe noted in his diary
that the Chinese were not only hired as laborers, but also for their culinary
skills. He also described the spread of yellow fever from New Orleans,
Louisiana, through Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee, during 1878 and 1879.
In addition, Metcalfe recorded events such as bank failures in New York
City and other major cities and the lynching of two negroes in Greenville,
in 1875. He also referred to the speaking engagements of Cassius
Marcellus Clay in 1875 and John R. Lynch in 1876; his acquaintance in 1875
with a man formerly involved in the African slave trade; the overnight
stay of former Governor Charles Clark with the Metcalfes in 1876; and attending
a meeting of the Yazoo Delta Immigration Society in 1881. One diary also
contains accounting data recorded by M. P. Metcalfe who operated a grocery
outlet for several Washington County farms and plantations from 1875 to
1876. Arranged chronologically.
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Plantation Journals. 1857–1862. 4 volumes. This series contains four cotton
plantation journals used by Frederick Augustus Metcalfe from 1857 to 1862.
The journals, entitled The Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book, No.
3, Suitable for a Force of 120 Hands, or Under, eighth edition, 1859, were
designed by Thomas Affleck and published by J. P. Lippincott and Company
of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The journals afforded a planter or overseer
a means of recording daily events; the names of slaves; the amount of cotton
harvested daily by each slave; weather patterns; and inventories of stock
and implements used on a plantation. There are also sections devoted to
the management of slaves, (i.e., clothing, farming implements, medical
needs, births and deaths, and estimated fair market value at year's end).
The journals also recorded several instances of levees breaking and the
resulting inundation of the surrounding land. Also recorded are descriptions
of the illnesses, medical treatments (sometimes experimental), celebrations
and entertainments, religious exercises, living quarters, escape and subsequent
capture, and punishments and executions of slaves. Metcalfe also stated
that the plantation's livestock was frequently ravaged by bears, wolves,
and foxes. His journals also document the first arrival of ice on the plantation
in 1859. Metcalfe even mentioned observing Donati's Comet on October 3,
1858. He also mentioned sending negro men to work at Fort Pillow, Tennessee,
on December 1, 1861. Arranged chronologically.
Roll 2 (MF Roll # 36370):
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Account Book. 1880–1883; 1885. 1 volume. This series contains an account
book of Frederick Augustus Metcalfe that recorded the amount of cotton
harvested and ginned for the plantations Brighton, Courtland, Cold Springs,
Glenbar, and Newstead, and the amount of cotton other planters harvested.
It contains the weights, sales, and expenses of various planters. The account
book also lists the amount of Newstead Plantation land rented and the amount
of fodder harvested and or purchased for livestock.
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Lecture Notebooks. 1849; 1855–1856; 1882–1883; 1885; n.d. 3 volumes. This
series contains Frederick Augustus Metcalfe's undated lecture notebook
for a course on human anatomy kept while attending school in New York City
and his lecture notebook on the belles-lettres kept while attending the
College of New Jersey (Princeton University) during 1849. Also included
is Harley Metcalfe's lecture notebook on political science, history, law,
and rhetoric for the year 1885. Arranged chronologically.
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Miscellany. 1858–1861; 1869–1870; 1875; 1880; n.d. 1 folder. This series
includes an agreement between Frederick Augustus Metcalfe and William Golding,
a freedman, regarding Golding's rental of a portion of acreage on the Newstead
Plantation in 1870. It also includes an undated petition signed by Metcalfe
and his wife and several other Washington County citizens requesting that
the Board of Supervisors authorize the construction of a public road in
their area of the county. Arranged chronologically.
